Nice guys who have been treated badly

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Well, in the example of the "first date" I have in mind I didn't lash out until AFTER she disliked me which was only AFTER the date was over. During the date itself I was very quiet. My "bad day" involved the fact that I had an Oral Exam coming up 3 days later. The way I reacted to that was that during my date I was thinking about the exam and as a result wasn't actively talking to her and looked quiet. It had nothing to do with my not liking her. Quite the opposite. If I weren't liking her I woul dhave told her "I have an exam lets meet a bit later" -- in fact she knew I was going to have an exam and she, herself, asked me "are you sure it is okay time to meet" and I siad "yes". So from this point of view I wanted to see her "so much" that I decided to agree to see her DESPITE the exam coming up. Of course, the other side of a coin is that our date took only like a couple of hours, so and I still had another 14 hours of my day to study for exam. Also, it was "inconsiderate" of me to make her drive all the way there if I couldn't give her undivided attention. But you see, I simply haven't thought of these things until after they happened. Thats why I am saying I would have done better on the next date since I would have learned the hard way that basically I should plan ahead and stuff.



But these things can be worked on! You see, if it is "who the person are" (regardless of situation) then it is hard to change. On the other hand, if it is "how does the person react to such and such situation" then perhaps this can be discussed and the person can learn to deal with situation better.

Besides, I never heard any girl tell me "I know you were acting this way because of situation X, but I am looking for someone who can actually deal with X better". For the most part, girl won't even acknowledge that it has anything to do with situation X to begin with. Like in case of Charlene she didn't say "I know it was because of the exam you had to study for; but the fact that you didn't postpone our date till after the exam shows you have a bad judgement". Instead, after I told her it was because of the exam, she simply reiterated "well I am not sure I know how to deal with that".

So you see to me it seems like part of the barrier is that people look at the actions and not at the reasons behind the actions. Now, in your response you actually said that YOU, YOURSELF, do look at the "reasons behind the actions"; in fact you acknowledged the situation in question, and you said that the issue is how the date handles that situation. Well, this, in itself, is very commandable on your part; but most people don't seem to share that traint with you. And I don't just talk about women. In case of professors I want to work with (who are mostly male since I talk about physics) they also tend to focus on actions and ignore any explanations of reasons behind them. This is what I wish people could do more.

Now, in case of your post, once again I appreciate the fact that you do, in fact, acknowledge the existance of outside situation and that hte actions are, in fact, "in light" of that situation. That part is good. I still, however, disagree with you on the part where you say that "how a person handles such and such is a sign of compatibility". This part can be worked on. YOu can't just assume a person is not compatible just because he can't handle a situation in question until you discuss that situation in detail and ways of handling it should it arize in future. I suspect, however, that a lot of people might agree with me if they were to "acknowledge" the existance of "the situation". The main source of a problem seems to be that most ppl simply fail to do that first step. They just assume its how I am, outside of any situation,



Well I won't want to date some girl who is "loud" either. I am talking about girls who are NOT loud and who, despite that, reject me for being quiet. I mean womans role is different than mans. So a girl is affeminite because thats who she is supposed to be. But she doesn't want her boyfriend to be affeminite. Hence she won't date me despite the fact that we have a lot in common otherwise. Like in case of Anne (see http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt5922.html ) she actually appreciated my traits. For exampe she asked me whether I feel lucky that I have Asperger because I can see deeper things in life. She then complained to me how her office-mates play video games all the time and how she has very few true friends because very few people can "get down to deeper things". This exactly mirrors my attitude an this is one of the main reasons I wanted to date her. Yet she turned me down for "lack of confidence". And even then, in the very statement about confidence she said "we are on the same boat on this one". So if we are both the same in this respect it won't make her uncomfortable. And if she likes me for these feautures, why not date me then? It seems like some "rule" was stoping her from dating me. In fact she said "how would our relationship be any different if we were in a relationsihp". So in terms of time we spend together and so forth she was willing to do everything that people in a relationship are doing. It was only some stupid rule that prevented her from calling it a relationship.

I wish I there was an option to ignore on this site. I'm so sick of people like you passive-aggressively bragging how about easy it is to meet women and date. It's obviously a shot at people like me, who have no hope.

It just makes me so mad and frustrated.

You have to take into account that in certain cultures or subcultures, people like different types of people, some women like thoughtful, quiet men and others like loud, witty men, it really depends on preference. At least he's making an effort to get out of the house and meet women without taking himself so seriously or letting rejection affect him or define him, you could learn something if you wasn't so bitter or self-loathing.

I think the premise behind this is that each person is putting their best foot forward. And there is the assumption that each has the social aptitude to hide any major problems, just for comfort's sake. That's the ticket to building romance, to make the other person feel awesome.

An aspie who is capable of doing this might choose not to, just because it is illogical. And that's why they hate us.

Roman, i won't really address most of what you've said as you are using a sort of slippery thinking that prevents you from ever having to take responsibility for your actions. you blame the date failing because of the exam, and if you had failed the exam i fully expect you would have blamed it on the date.

you also accuse others of not looking at the reasons behind the actions, yet you didn't do the same for Charlene. you made excuses and became more difficult. the second date was possible if you hadn't made things worse. not only did you make her feel unimportant on the date, but you dismissed her feelings afterward by making excuses instead of taking responsibility. if you said, "i'm sorry and i will use better judgement in future. please let me try again" it might have worked.

no. it is really really strange that you want to have allowances made for you because you do not fit the cookie-cutter male role, yet you expect women to act a certain way.

your "rules" seem to be things that you only created in reference to yourself. other people are not bound by any such rules. so that is why they do not exist.

Exactly, and that is what I don't do. Now, in some cases I was actually openly telling people that I didn't do the above. So why didn't this change their mind? Are you saying that they didn't believe me when I said I forgot to put my best foot forward? Or what?



Isn't "honesty" supposed to be a good quality? I understand that "strictly speaking" hiding problems is not lying. But still it is misleading. Also, putting the issue of "lying" aside, it would be "logical" to say "if NT hides problems, what else might he be hiding? If an aspie is so open, then we know there is nothing else he hides and we can openly talk things through". Yet NT-s don't ever realize any of these points.



But most of my social flabs have nothing to do with making the other person "feel less than awsome" (after all I never tell the other person "you are overweight" or "you have a bad breath"). Most of my social flabs have to do with portraying MYSELF (not them) in a "clumsy" way. So why should it bother THEM if I portray MYSELF as clumsy? The only way it can bother them is if they are into "social status game" which makes them feel "inferior" for being with someone of "lower social status". And that is quite shallow.



Exactly. The above quote describes where I come from.

i don't think anyone is hated over that, but if you don't put your best foot forward or at least reschedule until you are feeling your best for a date, then it will take serious damage control to get a second date.

the reason is that... if someone asks me on a first date, then i would think that simply being on that date is enough to make them reasonably happy. if they are in a bad mood on the date, i have no idea whether it is caused by me or some other circumstances, and frankly... i don't care. reschedule if you are feeling crappy.

on date #6, it is okay to be "off". on date #1 it is not, because it is our first chance to connect. if a guy in not even nice on the first date, i wonder what kind of crappy future beholds me with that person. it could be bad planning, it could be that he has absolutely no control over his moods, it could be that he is unhappy on the date with me... but it's too complicated and worrisome to figure that out. i would be hurt. maybe if he apologised and said sincerely he wanted another chance - without evading responsibility for hurting my feelings - i would go on a second date.

this is *not* just a female expectation. if a woman is not nice on the first date, it is highly unlikely she would get a second date with a guy.

You act like I haven't tried to meet women in the past. Mostly it ended with me being made fun of/humiliated. No decent looking girl would out with me. NEVER. I don't have to list all the reasons.

BTW, I can't learn anything from that dude, (except learning how to get casual sex, and I don't live that way) because I'm a lost cause. It has nothing to do with me being bitter or self-loathing.

Notice how you had to put two numbers here in the above quote? Well, nice guys view things like numbers as too mundane to think about. They are very idealistic, and they feel that love transcends all numbers or rules. Thats why I acted on date 1 exactly in the same way I would have acted on date 6. Yes I know from examples of other women it doesn't work this way. But in case of Charlene we connected so well throughout the whole month that I idealized her and viewed her as above and beyond other women. Thats why I felt that with Charlene it doesn't matter whether its date 1 or date 6, as long as it is Charlene. This is also why I didn't postpone that date. I wanted to see her so much that I was thinking about immediate question "seeing her now or later" and "now" is clearly a better option from the point of view of idealist that I am. I didn't think through the logical implications of seeing her "now" and how it can actually make things worse at the end.

if you haven't tried since you've been in school, then it hardly counts. you were hanging with the wrong bunch of people, and it's really not fair to judge the entire world according to those people.

This brings another good question. I was in two year relationship with Jennifer. Towards the end of a relationship Jennifer was always mad at me that I "dismiss her feelings by not taking responsibility" as you put it. Jennifer says that when I mess up she "has a right to be angry" and that by explaining to her why she shouldn't, I somehow "deprive her" of that "right". But what I don't understand is that anger is not a good feeling anyway. So I don't see how I hurt someone by telling them "not to be angry"? Now when I pushed Jennifer on the issue, she eventually told me that by dismissing the other person's anger I am

a) making them feel "unimportant"

and

b) I am "blaming them" for the situation.

Let me now adress why I disagree with both of the above points:

a) On my end I don't "make them feel unimportant" because I am more than willing to avoid doing whatever it is that made them angry. In other words, if they are angry that I didn't do X, I am saying "fine I will do X from now on". So, clearly, "doing X" for them IS important. On the other hand, how is "being angry over the fact that I didn't do X before" would help anyone? So my message is "just forget about my not having done X before; I will make sure to do it in future". But Jennifer gets angry at "just forget I didn't do X before" because she viewes it as unimportant.

b) My focus is a statement "it is not my fault" and NOT the statement "it is all your fault". I mean "logically" I see where she is comming from: it has to be "someone's" fault. So if my fault = x, and your fault = y, and total damage = z, then x+y = z, which means that y = z-x, so by making x smaller I am making y larger. But once again, lets forget the technicality and look at my intention. My intention is to say that x is small, NOT that y is large. If I "happen" to be saying that "y is large" along the way, then I am more than willing to forget about it. I mean, my overall message is "neither of us is perfect, lets forget BOTH my mistakes AND your mistakes and develop a relationship as if none of the mistakes have happened". The ONLY purpose of saying "x is small" is that for some reason they aren't willing to forget x. So, out of desperation, I am pointing out how x is small so that perhaps they reconsider and forget it. On my end, I am more than willing to forget about y. So even if y is large who cares? After all, I am willing to forget about y altogether, so I am not "blaiming" anyone for y whehter y is large or small. Why ascribe to me that I blame someone for something I actually don't care about?

Now here is the most interesting thing Me and Jennifer went to the San Francisco science museum. Among other things, they had 4 tapes of couple's fighting. They also put a titles next to each record. So one title was "justifying", another title was "anger" and then there were two more that I didn't remember. We were told that three of these couples will break up, and one will stay together. We were then asked to listen to the voices of these couples fighting and decide which would stay together. Then we were told if our answer was correct or not. Now, my answer was that "justifying" couple would stay together. Jennifer's answer was that "angry" couple would stay together. Jennifer's answer ended up being the right one. And this is quite surprising. I mean, in case of justification, the "damage" that it does is very indirect (when I justifying myself it "indirectly" implies that it is the other persons fault). On the other hand, an "anger" is a direct, deliberate, damage. So if "indirect" damage made by justifying is wrong, wouldn't the "direct" one made by anger be even worse?

I guess this is another place where "nice guy" issue comes up. The option of "justifying" is "nicer" option than the option of anger. Yet it turns out that "not nice" option wins. Being a nice guy I am very idealistic and thats why I don't see why anger can be a good feeling anyway, which is why I don't understand Jennifer's point that she "has a right to be angry". On the other hand, I see plenty of reasons of removing anger through justifying. Yet, my nice-guy-idealism apparently doesn't work for some weird reason.

i will say straight off that dismissing other people's anger is not a nice thing to do, so it really has nothing to do with being a nice guy.

anger doesn't go away when it is dismissed, so you were not helping her with her anger by dismissing it. you are in fact making the anger worse, and adding some hurt.

addressing the underlying issues and taking responsibility for the fact that your actions affect other people will help anger to go away.


you are invalidating their feelings and making them feel extremely unimportant. you are basically saying that their feelings are less important than your excuses and rationalisations. when you are in a relationship with someone, your actions affect them. failing to see that makes it look like you don't care enough about them to reflect on yourself and your issues, but instead dumping the situation back on the other person like their feelings are just their problem.


i was not inside your relationship but perhaps from her perspective, you didn't do X because you didn't care enough to bother. so it may be a pattern that you already didn't do A,B,C,D,E.... so by the time it got to X, it's not about the actions anymore. so she gets very angry.

the way to handle it is to say something like... "i am sorry i forgot to do X as i can see it is important to you. i'm going to try to be more considerate in similar situations in future. i didn't mean to hurt you." and then you give them space and don't expect everything to be instantly fine again as they may need time to calm down.


forgetting mistakes means not learning from them. for the rest of the stuff i can't quite see what you mean.


nothing surprising here - getting your feelings out in a healthy way and having a person acknowledge and respect that makes for a better relationship than simply avoiding or suppressing emotions (which is not healthy).


anger is not a bad emotion any more than happiness or sadness are bad. anger doesn't do any damage - the damage is done by how people may use their anger against others (but damage can be done by people who are happy too, or sad). but in and of itself it is only a feeling.

you may want to read "The Surprising Purpose of Anger" by Marshall Rosenberg. it details how anger has an important function both within ourselves and in society.


no. justifying is not nice at all. it diminishes the other person's feelings and makes them feel unimportant. nothing nice about it.

I think you probably misunderstood what I was trying to say. Let me clarify.

When I said "a girl is affeminite because thatas who she is supposed to be" I was saying that this is what is going on in her mind. On my end, this is one of things I am disagreeing with. I don't think either gender should be expected to fit any stereotypical role.

When I said "I won't want to date some girl who is "loud" either" I was simply trying to tell Jannissy that I understood the point she was making. Jannissy was telling me that if I am quiet I shouldn't date someone loud anyway, since I won't be able to keep up with her. So I responded "you are right point taken ... " and then went on to say that for some reason "quiet" girls don't like me either. Now, when I was saying "you are right point taken" thats where I said "I won't date a loud girl". So it has nothing to do with gender roles. It has to do with the fact that my being quiet that I am, I won't be able to keep up with someole loud (male or female).

But I didn't say that if you are quiet you shouldn't date someone loud since you won't be able to keep up with them. I said, "a woman who wants a loud man won't be happy with a quiet one". This doesn't mean that loud people must stick to other loud people and quiet people must stick to other quiet people. It means that each individual has someone they will be compatible with. That person may have traits the same as theirs or may have traits in opposition. There isn't a general rule. My point was that if a woman wants a loud man, she should not attempt to date a quiet man just to be fair. The point of yours I was disputing was that the concept of fairness is relevent in choosing a partner. I don't think it is. I think compatibility is what's relevent.

You want a quiet woman. That is fine. That is who you would be compatible with. But compatibility works both ways. Not only must she be compatible with you. You must be compatible with her. And there are no general rules about all women or all men that can guide who is compatible with who. Sometimes opposites attract. Sometimes people with shared traits attract. No actual rule.

Energy level and social expectations are important too. The first year or two of knowing someone are filled with getting to know them. Their history, their preferences, and their dreams. That's fun, and I say, what then.

Aspies tend to be comfortable roommates. No conversation. A bit of romance every now and again.

Some people have (what they call) vibrant social lives. Off to the bar every Friday night, Saturday has events, and Sunday is relaxing a little to prepare for work the next day. Together activities, or getting some space from the spouse?

And at the furthest extreme is the person who wants to fill every waking moment with chatter. About anything and everything.

Theres a plenty of nice guys that have felt the string of an angry, hurtful woman

Bondage and discipline may help, or avoiding hostile women. I'm kinda attracted to taming wild women....

Most women will let fly with a stinging comment at least now and then, the problem is:

***they find a whipping boy instead of the source of their anger, thereby escalating tension between the sexes, the innocent get hurt, and the guilty get away*****

Anger and women is an oxymoron in modern culture, so it tends to come out in a perverted repressed manner.... much like modern male anger When I see it under the surface, I cant help the fun by giving a good poke. Calmly riling others is a simple pleasure like playing with an angry snake.... I like to aim high when I'm mean or feeling especially iconoclastic, I once held back a dragon on the Island of Komodo

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes and forms. Slay the lamb if you must